Severe Weather

Anatomy of a clipper system

Updated Tuesday afternoon...... You have heard the term many times. A "clipper" system moving across the Ohio Valley.
The was named after the old clipper ships that would sail rapidly with the wind across large bodies of water.A clipper in weather terms is a fast moving storm system that develops over the plains of Canada and sails down into the U.S. along the jet stream.The official term is Alberta Clipper from it's place of origin.However, these weather systems have developed in other areas and I have used the terms....Manitoba Mauler and Saskatchewan Screamer. Sorry to say, these Belski terms have never really caught on in the meteorological arena.

Anyway, 80-90% of the clipper systems from fall to spring have a track north of Louisville. That is important when it comes to snow during the winter.Below is the current system that is forecast to track from SE Iowa to Louisville and then to northeast Kentucky tonight.South of the clipper track, the south winds kick in and things warm up.Usually the steadiest precip. is ahead of the warm front. Today, that is all rain.During the winter, that area can produce a trace to several inches of snow sometimes followed by a change to rain.The secondary precip. area is north of the low. That is the all snow area. In the winter, these snow totals can range from an inch or two to as much as 6 or 7 inches. During the winter, the cold stays locked in north of the storm track.Snow has falling over Iowa into NW Illinois right now with up to 2.5 inches. With this current track to Louisville, much of Kentucky will see a warm up into early evening. Locally, there will be a few showers with the steadiest rain to the north.Colder weather always follows on the backside of these systems and it looks like tomorrow may hold in the 40's.If you want snow from one of the systems during the winter, then you will want a track from southern Illinois across southern Kentucky. When this rare track happens, Louisville can get a quick 1-3 or 2-4 inches of snow. Sometimes it is even higher. As I mentioned before though, the vast majority of clippers during the winter track to our north giving us rain and warmer weather. As a snow lover, I am not fond of a northwest flow during the winter. It can bring the cold, but too often the main snows stay to the north and you don't get the monster storms out of the Gulf of Mexico with a northwest flow.______________________________________________________________________________

I received my copy of the National Geographic magazine today. On the cover is the late Tim Samaras. He was one of the most famous and well respected storm chasers of all time.You may have seen him on the Discovery Channel show, Storm Chasers. Tim was always very careful and conservative when it came to getting so close to tornadoes. That's why it was so shocking that he along with his son and another storm chaser on his team were killed by the El Reno, OK tornado on May 31.That was the tornado that was a monster, 2 miles wide and moving at over 50 mph at times. The track would vary and it surprised even the most experienced storm chasers.A Weather Channel crew headed by Mike Bettes was also injured by that tornado.The article covers Tim's many chases and research and how much was learned about tornadoes thanks to his efforts.___________________________________________________________________________On a lighter note. Earlier this month I passed along the weather saying about October always having at least 19 fine weather days.Today was number 13 so we need 6 days in the last 9 days to reach that number. It is going to be close, but it does look like pleasant weather returns by the weekend. There have only been 2 years in the last 25 that Louisville did not make it to 19 during October.